Talk:Mano a Mano

Proof-reading version 2009

Remove sections from the following list if they have been proofread since 1 January 2008. Add sections if they have been significantly changed since their last proofreading and need to be proofread again.

• Game Design
  • Abilities: How good is this list? To what degree should a game need to customize it?
    • Movement Abilities
    • Combat Abilities
    • Stealth and Detection Abilities
    • Transportation Abilities
    • Communication Abilities
    • Other Abilities
    • Disabilities
  • Equipment: Make sure these lists are up to date and make sense. The new example template (human) should give us a solid point of reference.
    • Equipment Lists
    • Equipment CP
    • Armor - example armor list
    • Hand Weapons - example hand to hand weapon
    • Missile Weapons - example long range weapon list
• Character Creation
  • Description
  • Build
  • Character Abilities
  • Choosing Occupations
  • Character Equipment
  • Encumbrance and Movement
  • Extra CP
  • Make a Character - Character Generation Example
    • Choose the Type of Character You Want to Make
    • Dimensions, Modifiers and Abilities from the Template
    • Natural Weapons
    • Use the Remaining CP to Customize the Character
    • Occupation and Equipment
    • Movement, Encumbrance and Toughness
• Action
  • Damage
    • Armor
    • Stun, Damage and Toughness
  • Rounds
  • Movement
  • List of Actions
    • Hand to Hand Attacks
    • Thrown Weapon Attacks
    • Archery and Marksmanship Actions
    • Grappling Actions
    • Other Actions
  • Attacking
  • Grappling
  • Archery and Marksmanship
  • Stance and Position
  • Mounted Combat
  • Combat Example
• Character Development
  • Manufacturing and Modification
    • Maximum CP
    • Surgery
    • Make an Item - Equipment Generation Example
    • Modify Weapon Example
    • Artificial Character Example
    • Character Modification Example

Mano a Mano 2009

Character Points

• Remove all CP pools except for Template CP and Total CP. CP will be "spent" like money. During template and character generation CP can be tallied on scratch paper.
• CP scales should be linear. Simpler CP rules will make it easier to calculate CP
• Experience - whether measured in CP or smaller units - will not be on the character sheet.
• Maximum speed, agility, power, toughness and ability levels are campaign-dependent in the same way that CP levels are campaign dependent. Ordinary people and starting characters might have a budget of 300 CP and maximum abilities 2 levels higher than their templates (i.e. expert level.) Once the game starts and characters start gaining experience (more CP) you might have a higher level limit of 3 or even 4. In a superhero game, starting characters might have a budget of 1000 CP and maximum abilities 4 levels higher than their templates. A superhero game might also raise speed, agility, toughness and power limits. In some games you might want starting characters to have specialized elite skills (keep CP limit modest but allow 3 ability levels above template) In other games you might want characters to be able to start off with a variety of limited skills (more CP but keep 2 ability level limit.)

Making and Equipping PCs

• If the consequences of disabilities are easily avoided, then they should not have a negative CP value. Players need the GMs permission to add disabilities which aren't built into the game's templates. Characters should not have more than two disabilities.
• Characters can be male or female unless the template lists different options.
• Characters can be youths, adults or old people within normal size variance. To make a small child character without changing the template, reduce the mass, length, health and power to less than the template's variance suggests.
• The occupations rules say occupations can come with equipment. In character creation we can suggest starting occupations as a way to provide starting equipment.
• In addition to equipment acquired by occupations and craftsmanship, we can also suggest that a game can have other ways to provide characters with equipment, like spending money and finding treasure.
• The occupations example shows characters being awarded with a certain CP-worth of equipment. Instead we should say something like "in this example each item is worth it's CP value in small silver coins. The knight is rewarded with equipment whose value in coins equals the robber's CP."

Equipment List

• cover and absorption become features
  • we should also remove the cover and absorption columns from the character sheet.

• +1 combat modifier is replaced by the "reach" feature which gives a +1 to the weapon's combat modifier.
  • We might want to call this feature "distance", "leverage" or "control" to suggest why flexible weapons don't have it.

• I removed spiked knuckles (spiked knuckles, ice picks, etc. are in the knife/gaff/spurs category)
• I removed ammunition from thrown weapons (arrows, bolts and sling bullets) except for the atlatl dart which is a heavy weapon in it's own right.

Compact Characters

Some games will have some characters who only need a little bit of information instead of full character sheets. A common example is stock villains and monsters which only need combat stats and sometimes a few special qualities or abilities. There are at least two situations where having a compact representation of characters can be useful:

1. Battle-on-a-page where two facing pages of an RPG book contain everything a player or GM needs to play one side (the "NPC" side) of a battle. Sometimes this will only require a single character who fits on one page with a full character sheet. But if it involves more than 2 characters and the information that fits on their character sheets, then a full sized character sheet won't work.
2. Book-of-beasties which contains dozens of creatures which need to be playable. Most of these creatures won't have equipment or need any kind of character development. On the other hand you may want templates for each critter. A full character sheet would allow you to have a character and template together, and there may be very little difference between a template and a playable character anyway.

One option is a scaled-down character sheet with unused equipment and damage sections trimmed from the bottom:

Name Joe Human Age adult Sex male Template human Occupation(s) _______________________________________________________________ Carrying Capacity 3 kg Mass 80/ 80 kg Abilities and Qualities Mod Equipment Mass 0 kg Length 1.8/1.8 m ________________________ / Encumbrance 0 Type tall ________________________ / Var. medium ________________________ / Ground Movement 4 m ________________________ / Water Movement 0 m Speed 1 / 1 ________________________ / Air Movement 0 m Agility 3 / 3 ________________________ / Climbing Movement 0 m Power 4 / 4 ________________________ / Toughness 6 / 6 ________________________ / Character Points 200/200 ________________________ / ________________________ / Equipment and Natural Defenses Features Mass Heft Power Cmb 2 hands hand ____ ____ 2 - 4 3 2 feet ____ ____ 2 - 4 3

Name Barbarian Age adult Sex male Template human Occupation(s) barbarian Carrying Capacity 30 kg Mass 100/ 80 kg Abilities and Qualities Mod Equipment Mass 3 kg Length 1.8/1.8 m swordsmanship 2/ 0 Encumbrance 0 Type tall ________________________ / Var. medium ________________________ / Ground Movement 4 m ________________________ / Water Movement 0 m Speed 1 / 1 ________________________ / Air Movement 0 m Agility 3 / 3 ________________________ / Climbing Movement 0 m Power 8 / 4 ________________________ / Toughness 10 / 6 ________________________ / Character Points 252/200 ________________________ / ________________________ / Equipment and Natural Defenses Features Mass Heft Power Cmb 2 hands hand ____ ____ 4 - 8 3 2 feet ____ ____ 4 - 8 3 1 big sword sharp, reach, 2-handed 3 kg 7 5 -10 5

Another option is a compressed character sheet using abbreviations:
N Joe Human A S m T human O CC 3 kg Mas 80/80 kg (Qua/Abi)lities Mod EM 0 kg Lng 1.8/1.8 m / Enc 0 Typ height / Grd 4 m Spd 1 / 1 / H2O 0 m Agi 3 / 3 / Air 0 m Pwr 4 / 4 / Clm 0 m Tgh 6 / 6 / CP 200/200 / Equipment/ND Features Mas Hft Pwr Cmb 2 hands hand 2-4 3 2 feet 2-4 3	N Barbarian A S m T human O barbarian CC 30 kg Mas 100/80 kg (Qua/Abi)lities Mod EM 3 kg Lng 1.8/1.8 m swordsmanship 2/0 Enc 0 Typ height / Grd 4 m Spd 1 / 1 / H2O 0 m Agi 3 / 3 / Air 0 m Pwr 8 / 4 / Clm 0 m Tgh 10 / 6 / CP 252/200 / Equipment/ND Features Mas Hft Pwr Cmb 2 hands hand 4-8 3 2 feet 4-8 3 1 big sword sharp reach 2handed 10 5

A third option is a short, minimal list of stats:
Joe Human, 80/80 kg, 1.8/1.8 m tall, 1/1 Spd, 3/3 Agi, 4/4 Pwr, 6/6 Tgh, 4 Grd, 200/200 CP, 2 hands (hand, 3 Cmb, 2-4 Pwr), 2 feet (3 Cmb, 2-4 Pwr)	Barbarian (human), 100/80 kg, 1.8/1.8 m tall, 1/1 Spd, 3/3 Agi, 8/4 Pwr, 10/6 Tgh, 4 Grd, 252/200 CP, 2/0 swordsmanship, 2 hands (hand, 3 Cmb, 4-8 Pwr), 2 feet (3 Cmb, 4-8 Pwr), 1 big sword (2-handed sharp, 5 Cmb, 7 Hft, 5-10 Pwr, 3 kg)

Another type of compact character is a "how to" format for beginning players:

Joe Human You can move up to 4 meters before or after attacking. Attacking with the hands and feet: For a strategic strike, roll one die and add 4 to the result. For other attacks, roll one die and add 3 to the result. The attack succeeds if this total is greater than the defender's total. Quick strike, strategic strike, cautious strike, push and slam do up to 1 damage and 1 stun. Powerful strike, trip, wrench, choke and disarm do up to 2 damage and 2 stun. For a combo, do any 2 of the following: quick strike, push, hold. When attacked: If your last action was evade or instant stand, roll one die and add 5 to the result. If your last action was a strategic strike, roll one die and add 4 to the result. Otherwise, roll one die and add 3 to the result. The attack fails if this total is greater than or equal to the attacker's total. If damage plus stun is greater than 3, you can only do 1 quick strike, push or hold. If damage plus stun is 6 or more you can't move or attack.

Barbarian You can move up to 4 meters before or after attacking. Attacking with the big sword: For a strategic strike, roll one die and add 6 to the result. For other attacks, roll one die and add 5 to the result. The attack succeeds if this total is greater than the defender's total. Quick strike, strategic strike, cautious strike, push and slam do up to 5 damage. Powerful strike, trip, wrench, choke and disarm do up to 10 damage. For a combo, do 1 quick strike, push or hold with the big sword and a quick strike, push or hold with the feet: Roll one die and add 3 to the result. The attack succeeds if this total is greater than the defender's total. A quick strike or push does up to 1 damage and 1 stun. When attacked: If your last action was evade or instant stand, roll one die and add 7 to the result. If your last action was a strategic strike, roll one die and add 6 to the result. Otherwise, roll one die and add 5 to the result. The attack fails if this total is greater than or equal to the attacker's total. If damage plus stun is greater than 5, you can only do 1 quick strike, push or hold. If damage plus stun is 10 or more you can't move or attack.

Editing Character Sheet

If you change the character sheet format when editing any of the following, you must update the others:

• Blank Character Sheet
• Example Template
• Example Character

Be sure you know which character sheet you are updating:

• The template creation example includes both the blank character sheet and the example template.
• The character creation example includes both the example template and the example character sheet.